


Fire and Hexwood

by Cyphomandra



Category: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones, Hexwood - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Arthurian, Crossover, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Canon, Trains, Trees
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:40:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28141764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyphomandra/pseuds/Cyphomandra
Summary: How many magical beings with the power to warp reality and cloud memory could there be in one small segment of the UK?
Comments: 7
Kudos: 22
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Fire and Hexwood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eloarei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/gifts).



> Thanks as always to my terrifying competent betas, who have wrestled my commas into submission.

_Nowhere,_ Tom had said, but _Nowhere_ was difficult enough to visit and impossible to stay in for any length of time. Polly returned to Oxford and a waiting essay, and when she set out the next weekend to see Tom, fizzing with a self-consciously adult excitement at her first overnight stay with a lover, her train was left waiting in a siding for six hours due to line work and the promised substitute bus took her on a circuitous and painfully slow route right back to her college. When she phoned Tom to explain, the line crackled and buzzed with a malevolent hiss. On the Sunday, Tom drove over instead and, Laurel’s protection now withdrawn, wrote off the horse car in a spectacular smash not five miles into the trip that also broke his wrist.

“Not my bowing hand, at least,” Tom said, when Polly finally found him on a trolley in the depths of the hospital corridors. He had a dark semi-circular bruise on his head, like the mark of a horseshoe. His mouth twisted in a painful smile. 

The tears in Polly’s eyes splintered the fluorescent lights into sharp-edged daggers. “Your poor car,” she said, inadequately, and hovered, not knowing if it was safe to touch him. 

“A Viking funeral.” Tom put out his good hand towards her and then took it back, obviously equally uncertain. “Polly - ”

A big Jamaican orderly with a name badge that read “Winston” appeared and gripped the rails of Tom’s trolley, toeing the brakes free. “Wanted in theatre,” he said.

Tom grimaced at Polly. “In the circumstances, I don’t think you should tell me to break a leg.”

She choked out a laugh. “No.” She stood aside as the trolley began to trundle off. “Perhaps - perhaps a letter would work better? Next time?”

“Perhaps.” Tom sounded doubtful. Polly could only see the back of his head as the trolley receded into the distance. “All my love.”

It wasn’t enough, obviously, and it wasn’t fair. Polly stomped out of the hospital, vision hopelessly blurred, and towards the train station, taking the shortcut through the spinney. The autumn trees were lit up like an early sunset in the afternoon sun. A single browning oak leaf detached itself from a branch to tumble down slowly through the air, fluttering in front of her.

***

“Fain would I take this burden from you, my liege.” Sir Polly kept her head bowed, eyes fixed on the trampled rushes that covered the castle’s flagstones. She’d seen the maids strewing them fresh this morning, but their edges were already beginning to brown, and their sweet scent carried a tinge of corruption.

The king shifted in his litter on the dais in front of her. She heard a muffled grunt of pain as he jarred the old unhealing wound.

“Must it be you.”

It wasn’t a question, and Sir Polly didn’t answer. She held her position in rigid perfection. A single lock of pale hair slithered free from her helm to hang down in front of her face, the curling ends brushing the rushes.

“Very well.” King Tom moved again, and now Polly did look up, seeing the light glint off his glasses, the hollowed but still familiar cheeks, and his lips tight with pain.

“Go then, Sir Polly, and all our hopes with you.”

Polly ducked her head again. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I do not seek to remove all hope, Sire.”

“Too late for that.”

The king’s voice held nothing but regret, Sir Polly told herself; nothing more than that.

The plates of her armour slid together smoothly as she rose, backing away from the dais. The king’s attendants were motionless shadows beside him.

In the hallway outside Sir Nina came striding up, her piebald armour clanking. “Is he letting you go?” and, when Polly nodded, Sir Nina huffed dramatically. “Finally.” 

Her glance took in Polly, hands empty and sword belt hanging loose at her side. “When do you leave? Have you supplies?”

When Polly murmured that no, she hadn’t, and it was probably best to leave as soon as possible, Sir Nina bustled Polly along to the armoury and rang the bell loudly.

Polly drifted up to the counter behind her. She’d thought that when the king granted her request, it would fill her with belief. Instead it seemed to have drained her of any certainty. She told herself that she went out to find the Obah Cypt, as a dozen goodly knights had done before her, and where they had failed she would succeed. She would. A trickle of hope threaded through her inner gloom.

Sir Nina banged on the bell again. “Shop!”

The thought slithered away. A man’s voice yelled, cheerfully, “Keep your hair on!” and then the man himself sauntered out from between the stacks. He had a mop of blond hair, freckles, and a sharp nose, and the smile stayed on his face as he glanced between the two knights. “What can I do you for?”

Polly took a grip on herself. “I go to seek the Obah Cypt,” she said. “I would lief depart ere nightfall.”

The man nodded, making his silver earring glint, and pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Sword’s traditional. Spear gives you reach, although I s’pose if you were cowardly enough to want maximal reach you’d hide behind a tree with a bow and arrow. But if you prefer the bludgeon attack - “ he reached down below the bench, and extracted, with some effort, a heavy morning star mace, dropping it with a thud onto the counter. The metal spikes were streaked with dark stains.

She was not a coward. And as a squire Polly had spent years training with weapons. Drilling with swords, in full armour, for hours, until thrust and counter-attack became bone-deep instinct, holding lances on horseback to joust against the quintain and be knocked free of the saddle by the swinging sandbag if she failed to strike true, melee and tournament and combat trial… The sword, obviously. Heroes always used swords. But something held her back.

Sir Nina poked at the mace. “How about an arquebus?”

The man’s smile flattened. “You’re stretching the limits of period.” It sounded like a warning.

“Master Armourer.” Polly met the man’s gaze squarely. “A single-handed sword.”

“A fine choice,” the man said, but his eyes were dark. “And my uncle’s the master. I’m Leslie.” He retreated into the shelves, his footsteps light and sure, and returned with a single scabbarded blade, which he slid across the counter towards Polly.

She lifted it. A well-balanced blade. “My thanks.” Polly buckled it into her sword belt. “Oh. ’Tis sure I’ll sleep at least one night in the greenwood.” She made it as casual as she could. “Perhaps a bow, for a supper of rabbit. Coneys are no respecter of knightly duelling conventions.”

As with the king, Polly deliberately avoided meeting Leslie’s gaze, but from the corner of her eye she saw his shoulders relax just a fraction. He’d given her the clue, after all. She took the bow and quiver without bothering to look them over, as if they hardly mattered.

“You’re a terrible shot,” Sir Nina said, disparagingly but correctly. “We’d better get you some bread as well.”

Polly’s saddlebags were stuffed full by the time Sir Nina was satisfied enough to wave her, staggering off towards the stables. Her horse was already tacked up and waiting in the yard, tail stwitching with impatience. _Someone else who wants me to go_ , she told herself. Polly strapped on her bags and settled her weapons automatically.

Polly’s eyes kept trying to peek back to the hall and her wounded king. She squinted fiercely at leather and metal buckles instead, tying the bow into place along the saddlebags. She lifted Lorenzo’s reins free from the wall hook. The horse snorted and shook his golden head vigorously, the stiff hairs of his mane stinging Polly’s cheeks.

“Yes, yes,” she said, soothingly, and gripped the saddle horn to swing herself up. She dug her heels into the horse’s warm flanks and urged him onward.

Lorenzo’s hooves rang out as they clopped across the drawbridge to the large patch of greensward the castle knights often used for training, the grass kept short by the weight of armoured feet and hooves, and beyond that lay the massed green of the wood. Every time she came here, the trees seemed to have moved a little closer. 

A ripple in the empty air, and then it was no longer empty. The queen and her ladies sat in the middle of the greensward, the skirts of their elaborate dresses heaped around them like lilies on a lake, a bower of woven branches and flowers arching over them for shelter. A wicker basket of summer fruits sat temptingly before them. Soft music and floral scents filled the air. 

The queen, cloaked in white samite and cloth of gold, smiled up at Polly. “Good Sir Polly.” Her voice was the chime of silver bells. “Where go you this fair day?”

Polly reined in her horse. “I am bound to quest for the Obah Cypt, my lady.” She inclined her head in homage. “Gentle ladies.”

The queen’s light, almost colourless hair, unbound, lifted around her face in slow waves. “A treacherous path indeed. Yet am I glad that such a knight has finally found a quest worthy of her. Tis no good to keep a blade indoors so long that it rusts.”

It was so close to what Polly herself thought that she forgot, and met the queen’s gaze directly. Dark tunnels pulled at her, sucking her in and hollowing her out.

Lorenzo shied, snorting and shuddering violently. It jolted Polly back into herself. Hastily she glanced down at the grass again.

“Or sit around and sigh for what might have been.” The queen’s voice was full of caring and regret. “Go with our blessing, Sir Polly.” She plucked an apple from the basket and tossed it to Polly.

Polly put out a hand and felt it smack into her palm. “My thanks.” Her throat was thick, and it was hard to force the words through.

The queen was still smiling. She lifted one hand from its trailing gauze of gold in a parting gesture. 

Lorenzo was as eager to get going as Polly was. He broke into a teeth-jarring trot that carried them swiftly across the greensward, and into the first few eager saplings. Polly told him firmly that even a tap-dancing carthorse would be ashamed of a gait like that and gathered in the reins one-handed, tucking the apple under her chin. One of the saddlebags shifted behind her. She reached back to check that it was still fastened, and her hand met the cool yew of the longbow.

There was a yellow pretzel packet in the hedge. Irked, Polly clucked her tongue at the careless youngsters of today, as her grandmother would have it, and bent to retrieve the packet only to find her hands were already full.

“Botheration.” Polly tucked the apple under her chin again and halted. Her skin crawled with freezing heat. She turned around in the muddy lane, seeing no-one else there, no horse, no armour, no weapons - the apple fell to the ground with a thud and rolled a short distance, its rosy skin splashed with mud. 

In her other hand, gripped so tightly that her knuckles were beginning to ache, was a long elegant cello bow.

***

“It’s that wood again,” Yam said crossly. “Give it an inch and it’ll take over the whole planet.”

Mordion raised one eyebrow. While Yam was undoubtedly right, which happened when you were an essentially immortal cyborg who was already thousands of years old, he did also bear grudges. And if he was right about who, it didn’t answer the question of how. 

“We gave the wood its own theta-field,” Mordion pointed out. “This is different.”

“If these readings are correct,” Vierran put in, hanging over Mordion’s shoulder to peer at the lines and graphs of energy displayed on the cube, “whatever it is, it’s behaving like a Bannus. Could the wood do that?”

Yam, whose metal face was visible to them on the surface of another cube, looked hunted. “Ah,” he said. “Possibly.”

Mordion waited. Vierran sat back in her chair, bright eyes attentive.

“I was in there a very long time.” Yam grimaced. “The wood is chaos. But it does fall into patterns. Old ones, for preference, with the paths well-worn by years of belief and repetition. It may have - learned.”

 _Belief and repetition._ Mordion thought about the Bannus, trapped on Earth for a thousand years, and rehearsing over and over all its possible plans for revenge. 

“Can it be undone?”

Vierran reached out for Mordion’s hand, interlocking her fingers with his. As always, the contact gave Mordion a burst of baffled joy mixed with a quick stab of guilt. Vierran told him often enough that it wasn’t his fault he’d survived, whatever he’d had to do to achieve it, and on the whole Mordion agreed, but a small part of him would always be that trapped and desperate child, convinced he could never be enough for anyone.

“We need to find out what it’s trying to do first.” Vierran gave Mordion’s fingers a light squeeze. “Then we can decide.”

Yam looked as miserable as a robot could manage. “Back to Earth, then.”

“Vierran can pick you out something nice to wear,” Mordion said smoothly. The squeeze he got in return was a lot tighter this time.

“You,” Vierann said in his ear, and he didn’t bother to hide his smile.

***

Polly stalked up and down the lane another half a dozen times, eyeing each tree with deep suspicion, before giving up. Whatever - wherever - she’d been, it wasn’t letting her in again, and even if it did, surely it would be better to go in with a plan. She would talk to Tom once he’d had his wrist fixed. She shoved the apple into her pocket untouched, prudently aware of fairytale advice on the dangers of eating enchanted gifts, and swung the bow at her side. For a moment she fretted she might have emerged a hundred years or more in the future, but the road held nothing more futuristic than space aliens on the posters outside the video shop.

The clerk on the orthopaedics ward looked blankly at Polly when she asked if Mr Lynn were back from theatre. Reception had no record of him either, and when Polly, trying to ignore the horrible churning feeling in her gut, pushed her way through a lengthening queue to ask the triage nurse in A&E, she got only a lecture about privacy and a collection of hostile glares from all the people waiting. She muttered an apology and plodded back outside - where a familiar-looking orderly was pushing an empty wheelchair up the access ramp.

“Excuse me.” Polly caught him at the door. “Do you - do you remember me?”

Winston leaned on the back of the wheelchair. His gaze slid over Polly and stalled on the cello bow. “Someone nick your double bass?”

“What? Oh. It’s not mine.”

“That guy you were with earlier?”

“Yes!” Her relief was overwhelming. “Have you seen him?”

“Left him outside surgical, like I was told.” Winston shrugged. “Trolley was empty when I picked it up. Well.” His eyes narrowed in thought. “Odd thing. There was a leaf on the pillow.”

Polly’s mind seized on the information and, scrabbling for some explanation, lit on Laurel. Laurel wreaths for victors, made of the evergreen leaves that were more common now in kitchens - “Was it a bay leaf?”

“Nah. Copper colour, and like a teardrop. Pretty.” He sketched a classic leaf shape in the air with one finger. “Your man’ll be back on the ward now.”

Polly wasn’t going to argue with him. “Thank you,” she said, and allowed him to hold the door open so she could walk into the hospital yet again and down a corridor she knew would take her nowhere helpful before ducking into the Ladies and letting Winston trundle on ahead. She washed her hands automatically and stared at herself in the mirror, noting a certain wildness around the eyes. The fine strands of blonde hair that had escaped her ponytail lifted and crackled in the dry air.

“You’ll find him,” she told Polly in the mirror, and Polly, dubious, stared back.

***

Tom waded more deeply into the lake in the woods, holding his sword well clear of the surface. Heavy ripples radiated slowly outwards through the thick brown water.

When he’d come here last, the reeds edging the water had been lush and green, and the water clear. And he’d been certain that what he was doing was the right thing.

His feet sank into the mud with each step. The air around was still; no insects buzzing, no birds, and even the splashes as he moved forward were muffled. The sun glared down on the whole scene.

He should be far enough in now. He hefted the sword up, his hand already aching, and tried not to feel like a complete arse.

“I call upon the Lady of the Lake.”

His voice clanged against the silence and died away. Nothing moved, but Tom could now make out someone watching him intently from the bank, a woman with light hair. He wasn’t close enough to see her face.

***

Four portals away from Earth Vierran found Mordion in a shadowy corner of the Reigner Suite staring at a photo of a kind-looking man with a weak chin and faded blue eyes. In Memoriam, it said underneath, with a set of dates that weren’t Homeworld Standard; with a bit of mental effort Vierran managed to convert them, and drew the all-too-likely conclusion. Mordion turned around and caught her looking.

“Another one of my kills.” The lines around his mouth stood out starkly.

Vierran was bitterly impressed by her own ability to find new intensities of hatred for Reigner One. “Not by your order.”

“Doesn’t make much difference to the corpse. Or their family.” Mordion turned back to the painting. “I liked him,” he added. “He did his job well, and he tried to help me even while he hated and feared me - and he did, I could tell.”

Vierran knew exactly what a kind and competent manager this far out from Homeworld would have thought of the Reigners’ Servant. “He didn’t know you.”

Mordion shrugged. “You don’t have to know someone to hate them.”

What a terrible topic to end up on. Vierran cast round for an alternative, and, lacking any inspiration from the dismal soft furnishings, fell back on their mission. “Do you think Yam will be able to communicate with the wood?”

Yam himself, who wouldn’t meet them until Earth, was unhelpfully reticent on the matter and Vierran was unsure how much it would help anyway. The wood and Yam had both tricked her about their boundaries as well as their motives. Her merchant family’s propriety was duly pricked at the thought of trusting the wood to tell the truth; on the other hand (the other balance of the scales), the wood had sheltered them, even allowed Mordion to blow up bits of itself, and, ultimately, contained and confined Reigner One.

“I hope one of us can.” Mordion’s voice cut into her thoughts. “It’s trapped at least one human by the power readings, possibly a dozen or more. If we have to shut it down before they can get out…”

He trailed off, but Vierran could fill in the rest. If it had to be stopped then Mordion would do it, whatever the cost, and willingly impale himself afterwards on the sharp spikes of guilt and responsibility.

“We,” she said. The Third, Fourth and Fifth Reigners would have a say, too, she thought, and felt the click in her mind that meant they were well aware of the conversation. She reached out in her mind for Mordion - not in words, but as a reminder that he was never alone - and felt the others brush against her as they did the same.

One corner of Mordion’s mouth curled up slightly. “All right. I will stop brooding.”

The local Controller came in, sweeping low to the ground in a set of emerald robes, and announced that the portal was open. Mordion held out his hand for Vierran to take, ushering her along towards the pearly corridor, another step closer to Earth.

***

Polly pelted along the platform and flung herself into the last carriage of the Brighton train under the disapproving eye of the conductor. The train rattled along briskly and let her out at Miles Cross a little after three. She went down the steps into the forecourt, past the crumbling cross, towards the lone taxi waiting at the rank.

She’d argued with herself the whole way about what to do. It had to be Laurel who’d taken Tom; she had magic, the consequences of which were still hurting him, and surely she wanted revenge for being cheated of her prey? Who else could the beautiful queen in the castle - presumably Guinevere - have been? How many magical beings with the power to warp reality and cloud memory could there be in one small segment of the UK? She would go to Hunsdon House and demand Tom back.

But Laurel had rules, chilling and exact. She dealt in reality. In truths that people were afraid to admit to others, let alone themselves, not Arthurian fantasies of knights and quests. She’d only been able to make Polly forget Tom with Polly’s own consent. Tom was hardly a careful driver. And Winston had shaken his head when Polly asked about laurel leaves. Could she - and Tom - afford for her to guess wrong?

Her thumb rubbed against the smooth wood of the cello bow. Driven by agitation, no doubt, but the motion calmed her. It reminded her of the warmth of the concert hall on that terrible afternoon in Bristol, where the quartet had welcomed her in and played for her. Proof that she wasn’t alone. 

“Fool,” Polly said to herself. She might have misplaced Tom, but she still had plenty of others to call on. She shook her head at the taxi and went around the side of the station to the phone booth, digging in her pocket for 20p.

Reliable as always, Ann answered on the second ring. “Ann Abraham speaking.”

“Whit Acres Intersectional Musicology Studies,” Polly said briskly. “Tell me, as a Dumas expert and a musician, what wood do you think Athos would make his cello from?” At the last moment she’d realised it wasn’t the bow but what was missing that had to be important.

There was a pause. Polly hooked the receiver under the edge of her jaw and held her thumbs for luck. The bow banged against her legs.

Ann sounded thoughtful when she spoke again, rather than puzzled. “Alpine spruce for the belly, almost certainly, and the fingerboard would be ebony. Most cellos use figured maple for the back, where the power comes from. But Athos - he’s the oldest musketeer, and one with bitter regrets. He doesn’t trust himself.”

Polly could hear Ann shift from theory to memory, and closed her eyes in relief.

“Beech for the back,” Ann said, with a quiet certainty. “Polly. It is you, isn’t it? What’s happened?”

Every autumn the beech in Polly’s Granny’s garden sent brilliant showers of copper ovals into the garden with each gust of wind - for a second Polly almost had a hold on whatever was happening. Oak, beech, yew… Then it jinked sideways, dodging her grasp.

“Tan Audel.” Polly put her fingers on the plastic ridge of the phone hook. “I’m on a quest. I may have need of companions.”

Ann’s voice rang like a bell. “You can always call on us.” 

“I know.” Polly tapped the hook, placing the receiver down gently. She went back to the taxi and, despite every part of her still said _Laurel_ , gave the driver Granny’s address.

Mintchoc came out to meet Polly when she arrived, miaouing imperiously and rubbing her face against the cello bow. Polly reached down to scratch behind one furry ear.

“Unexpected.” Granny followed Mintchoc out. “Not unwelcome, mind.” She looked over her glasses at Polly.

Polly straightened up. “Sorry, I should have called.” 

“I’ll put the kettle on. Wash your hands, it’ll take away ill meeting.” Granny bustled about in the kitchen, getting out two cups and saucers and the biscuit tin. Polly put the bow carefully on the mantel and wandered over to the sink, amused by another of Granny’s apparently endless superstitions. Out of the window she could see the handful of mature trees that marked the edge of the garden, all of them far older than Granny herself, although she always said that the gnarled and lichen-covered apple matched her, year for year. A wind caught at the trees, tugging a few leaves free to join their withered comrades on the grass. Beech, oak, sycamore…

“I have to pop out for a moment,” Polly said over one shoulder as she pushed open the back door.

Granny still did her own lawns, steering a rickety old push mower with a similar sort of approach to Tom’s with the horse-car, but the grass seemed to appreciate it; the lawn was lush and velvety, even this late in the year. The trees at the end were backed by a hedge, but something glinted beyond it. Polly shouldered her way through the shrubbery and found a man in silver prodding a tree branch disapprovingly.

Startled, she saw that it was metal, not clothing, and too shiny and smooth for armour. The face that met hers as she dragged her leg past a particularly resistant twig was not human. Something fluttered in the corner of her eye, and she grabbed for it without thinking, her fingers closing on the fragile leaf with a crunch.

*** 

The Knight Argent’s lance wavered as they closed, and Sir Polly unhorsed him easily. He fell to the ground with a clatter and rolled. Sir Polly circled back again.

“Do you yield?” she yelled.

The Knight Argent rolled to his knees with more clattering. His red eyes shone with malevolence. He held out one hand, and Sir Polly could see arcane energies gathering around it. She set her lance again and charged. The Knight Argent dissolved in a cloud of silver sparkles as the weapon hit him.

Odd. Sir Polly dismissed it as a coward’s trick and rode on.

*

“You go in and talk to her.” Yam glared at Mordion and Vierran. “I’m not ending up on - on a kebab skewer.”

“Did you get anything from the wood?” Vierran asked.

Yam rubbed at a scratch on his chest plate. “Amusement.”

*

Sir Polly left the river singing busily in its banks and climbed up a steep path. At the top was a cave, and in front of it, a wise hermit, sitting by a fire pit stirring a mess of bubbling stuff in a cauldron.

“Wise hermit,” Sir Polly said. “Know you where I might find the Obah Cypt?”

The hermit’s gaze was piercing under his craggy brows. “Is that what you truly seek?”

Polly pushed back her helm and ran a hand through the tangled mass of her hair. “I would save the king. He is injured near to death.”

 _Not my bowing hand,_ a wry voice said in her head. She cast a look of dark suspicion on the hermit.

“Know you the way?”

“You need to get out of the wood.” The hermit scooped some of the bubbling stuff into a rough clay mug and held it out. “Here.”

“I will taste no drink nor eat no meat until my quest is fulfilled,” Polly said, backing away. The cave receded rapidly into a dark speck, the hermit dwindling with it, and the river’s noise was a roar beside her.

*  
“I think the wood’s helping her.” Mordion picked at the sleeves of his robe. The fabric was stiff and scratchy.

“Helping?” Vierran ran her gaze over the console readings again. “But there’s someone trapped in there.”

“Yes, but she can come and go. Yam, what do you think?”

“I can disrupt it,” Yam had a collection of things in front of him - an acorn, a twig, a pine cone, a handful of leaves - and was moving them into patterns on the countertop with one metal finger. “Break this cycle. Before it loops in more people.”

Mordion looked at Vierran. Waiting.

If Yam and Mordion couldn’t fix it, surely she would also fail. But she’d told Mordion earlier that any decision would be made by all of them. She couldn’t suggest that only when it suited her. “All right. I’ll try.”

*

Sir Polly had left her helm by the hermit’s cave, and her hair streamed out behind her like a banner as she cantered along the river bank. Suddenly there was someone else galloping their own horse next to her, matching gaits. Polly shifted her weight forward and squeezed her horse’s sides, asking for more speed, and the other rider accelerated effortlessly. Hooves drummed against the bare earth like heartbeats, exhilarating and terrifying at once. Polly’s stomach dipped and swooped.. A fallen tree trunk loomed in front of them, and both horses leapt it with room to spare.

Up ahead the river suddenly widened, flowing into a lake. The other rider, a girl Polly’s own age with dark wavy hair, pulled her horse up to trot round in a sedate half-circle and shot Polly a grin. 

“Thanks for that. I haven’t had a decent ride for ages.”

Polly’s mount snorted as she gathered him in. “Nor I.” Polly’s armour went misty as she looked down at it, shifting uneasily from metal to fabric. She frowned at it, and it hardened somewhat. A knight’s first duty after their lord was their horse. Surely she’d ridden elsewhere.

For a second she was crouched on a pavement while a horse that seemed to be at least six wild animals all at once screamed above her. She blinked and she was on the lakeshore, the pebbles hard and irregular under her feet. Mist that swirled above the water, masking everything more than a few feet from shore.

The girl was looking at her, grey eyes solemn. “How much of this is you? Did you make a bargain with the wood?”

“I’m on a quest,” Polly said, insulted, but her horse and armour were gone, and when she reached for her sword, she drew out a handful of dead leaves that crumbled in her palm.

Leaves. 

It was finally there in her mind. The day she’d first gone to Hunsdon House, after racing around playing with Nina. They’d been sneaking through other people’s properties, playing spies and grand masters, but they’d started in Granny’s back garden, catching leaves. Oak, beech, sycamore…

_Every leaf you catch means one happy day!_

And she'd caught seven. A whole week. “Count your blessings,” Granny had said

She’d been miserable and desperate when she’d stomped out of the hospital after seeing Tom there, and an autumn oak leaf had drifted down and sent her on a quest. Evergreen yew had sent her back, beech had stolen Tom, sycamore sent her through once more. Halfway gone.

Good days? Surely not. But she could feel the wood shifting behind her, the trees rustling apologetically. Perhaps it could only do so much, limited by Laurel’s curse; only offer her hope.

“But I’ve hardly seen him,” Polly said to the massed trees.

*

Her skirts were arranged around her elegantly as she sat on the greensward with her ladies. Creaks from the drawbridge and the clop of hooves as a well-made knight rode out of the castle towards them. Polly bade her good day and smiled, hoping to bring some cheer to the knight’s serious face. 

Still dour, the knight vouchsafed her quest, and Polly realised that this was the knight her husband fretted over. Polly was glad the knight had finally found a mission, and said as much, and the knight met her gaze wide-eyed; for a second something reverberated between them, an echo or a shadow, and Polly forced her gaze away, disconcerted. Her gaze lighted on the basket of fruits, and on a whim she selected one for a parting gift. As the knight retreated at a brisk trot Polly rose, her skirts whispering. She took the basket.

“Let us depart,” she said to her ladies. In the cool dark of the castle she walked more quickly, heart lifting, and found her husband in the solar.

“How is your wound, dear love?” She waved the servants away.

Tom’s colour was better, although there was still strain around his eyes. “Almost nothing to mention.”

“Perhaps some fruit,” Polly said, and held out a single rosy apricot. She made Tom eat it from her hand, his lips grazing her fingers with each bite, closer and hotter as the tender flesh was consumed.

*

Back on the lakeshore, Polly felt she must be visibly steaming from embarrassment, her face no doubt beet-red. It was like when Tom had told her to look at backs, she thought, and so much worse when she saw that the hermit and the robot (surely not) were there too.

The girl shot her an understanding look. “I’ve done some terribly embarrassing things too. The wood isn’t very good with time. It’s all now, even if you haven’t been through half the bits yet.”

“I know it’s a lot to ask.” The hermit’s craggy face looked a little like a skull, but his eyes were kind. “Could you tell us what it’s trying to do?”

Hot and cold by turns, Polly stumbled through her story. Tom Lynn, Tam Lin, Laurel, and how Polly had ultimately repudiated Tom to save his life. A restriction they’d both thought they could beat until things began to go wrong. And, the same day she’d entered Hundson House, she’d snatched a handful of leaves from the autumn winds and gate-crashed a funeral with (Polly remembered now) the leaves shoved in a pocket of her borrowed black robe. 

“So why are you all here?” It came out as more of a wail than Polly had hoped.

“This particular wood has a connection off-world,” the hermit said. “It’s drawing on a lot of energy to try and find you a solution, from here and elsewhere.”

The robot sniffed. “Means well but lacks elegance. Dangerous.”

“Off-world?” Polly supposed that explained the robot. 

A look passed between the girl and the hermit, and then the girl took Polly’s hands. “I’m Vierran. And the wood is trying to help you.”

Polly could see that now. Adventures and romance, the promise of a happy ending. Although the Matter of Britain should have been a bloody warning that such things never lasted. 

“I’m as bad as Laurel. I trapped Tom in there and - and simpered at him…”

“You didn’t trap him.” Vierran squeezed Polly’s hands. “The wood did. You’re only halfway through your week. It would have given you all of that.”

And it would have, Polly knew. A series of somewheres that, stacked up on each other, could become a glorious Nowhere. But not now. She had to finish it.

Polly let Vierran hands slip from hers and dug into one of the pockets of the black robe she now wore, feeling the sharp edges of leaf fragments. She held the pile loosely in her palm, almost weightless, and then opened her fingers and blew them all into the lake with one breath.

The mists dissolved. A man stood knee-deep in the lake, one hand holding up the other in a thick white plaster cast that held his fingers rigid. His face was pale and his lips tight with tension. He caught sight of the group on the shore, his gaze going straight to the girl with fair hair.

“Polly?”

She waded out towards him, the water boiling into mist as she touched it. Maybe she’d be able to hold him, just once, before they were fully back.

The hermit coughed once, behind her. “You might want to try the other pocket.”

Startled, Polly slapped her hand to her side and felt something hard and round. What - ?

The apple she’d caught. The apple she’d thrown. A withered leaf from the youngest of Granny’s trees still clung to the stem.

“Romantic,” Vierran said. 

An accusation, but a loving one, and not meant for Polly. She spared a glance backwards and got .a glimpse of Mordion’s answering smile; then Tom caught her in her arms.

“Not again.” He pressed his lips to her hair. “I thought -“

Polly put a hand to his cheek, feeling the faint grain of stubble. “I know.” She held up the apple, trying not to blush at the memory of the apricot. “I think we have a chance.”

A leaf might give you a day’s happiness; but a seed could give you a lifetime.

THE END


End file.
